Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Snowed in for another day! Watching the snow fall must give me some energy because another small flimsy is done. I got the inspiration at this quilt shop. I saw it up on the wall and came home and made it before I forgot what it looked like...LOL. I couldn't decide which brown print I liked better with the pinks so I decided to use both.Here is a closer picture of the blocks. The block is 2 3/8" finished size...wow that's small...what was I thinking AGAIN.

This is what my backyard looked like this afternoon. The shrubs are getting pounded down by the weight of the snow. This big tree is not usually hanging so low, I can hardly see the fence hiding back there.

I hope you are finding time to spend sewing. Thanks for dropping by with a comment....I look forward to everyone.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

On Sunday we had a snow storm that left behind about 10" of the white fluffy stuff. It's not unusual for us to get snow, it IS unusual for this area to have the snow last longer than one day. After snow comes rain and with rain comes yucky slushy snow. I'm not complaining, I like to see the snow on the ground when it's dry and fluffy. Monday was sunny and the roads were clear, so I didn't have a problem driving to the quilt store. Another snow storm on it's way for Tue, so this is what we woke to, another 10" of snow today. It snowed most of the day, so I got busy with quilting.Doesn't the fountain look like a big fluffy cake on a stand. See how deep the snow is under the fountain. The quilt shop visit gave me the inspiration to make this small quilt by Lori Smith. So today while watching the snow falling I put together 54 itsy bitsy flying geese and finished a flimsy. The finished size is 19x14 and I think I'll put a brown binding on this one.Close up of the flying geese, these are 1"x2" finished.

While we visited this quilt shop the owner told us about the birthday month offer. All that's needed is to tell them your birthday month and and book a date for a party shopping spree. Bring 3 friends and the birthday girl gets 25% off (Yippee, Woohoo!) and her friends get 15% off. Since my birthday is next week (Thurs), I've book Monday for me and 3 friends to go shopping. The shop provides some treats for the party goers as well. I can't wait....we are going to have so much fun SHOPPING.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

It's not a great picture but better than nothing, gotta take the photo when there are some friends are around to hold the quilt for me, can't do this at home, no space. So here it is....ta da, the ladies at my stitching group meeting were nice to hold the quilt while I take the picture. The binding not finished in this picture but you can't tell....at least I don't think you can.Here's a close up of the machine quilting...okay the binding is now completed. I get very exciting when I can throw the quilt in the washing machine and get the wrinkled antiquey look of the quilt. This quilt will be on my bed so it'll be washed a lot especially since the cat will be sleeping on it too. I have a question for you guys, do you wash your quilts when it's going to hang on the wall??? Bed size quilts I always wash right away but what about table runners and wall quilts, do you always wash these, if not, why? I like the washed look, so in the machine they go.A little peek of the back, I found this toile on sale long time ago and this was just the right quilt to pull it out.

Last year at this time I had a desire to learn how to knit socks after not touching a knitting needle for 25 year, don't know why I wanted to start again with socks, just one of those things. I found the knit shop close to my house was offering sock knitting class the following week, great timing, sign me up. It happened again....this year I've had the desire to learn how to crochet, again it's been 25 years and I only did one crocheted project in my life. So down to the knit shop again and guess what??? they have a crochet class that starts next week...it was meant to be.... sign me up. The inspiration came from this, these sweet items are so irresistible....I must give it a try.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I've been working on dribs and drabs of things here and there, not feeling too productive this week. The top and back are finished on my sewing case. I now need to layer with batting and backing to do the hand quilting. It's such a small piece I figured it won't take much time to hand quilt and it'll make it that much more special. At our next months stitching meeting we'll be working on the gusset and zippers. Then we have a handle and some inside work of pockets, scissor holder and button and ties for holding threads. After that is all done then the whole thing can be assembled into a sewing case. It's not big but will be a nice size for holding all the things a girl needs to take along for hand sewing.

Something else I'm doing is hand sewing the binding on my queen size buggy barn star quilt. I didn't have a big enough piece of fabric to cut the binding all the same so I went scrappy there too. The whole quilt is scrappy so why not the binding. I'll show the completed quilt when I get the binding finished. I've also been cutting strips to make more 3" 9-patch blocks, I hope to have these done and mailed this week. I really want to have that quilt done too.

Oh ya...don't forget to stop by and see who's won the messy award on Nicole's blog. They are pretty bad and have definitely earned the award.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you are having a great week and have time to sew.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

I finished my punchneedle "Wings of Loooove" (as hubby would put it) and made this wool heart shaped pillow to put it on, or as hubby would say (cutsey-wootsey pillow) The edges of the punchneedle are turned under and secured before stitching to a piece of black wool with the large pinked edge, don't know how else to describe the jagged edge. Then the wool is whip stitched to the heart. I used rusty wire for the hanger and added a rusty key and ribbon to finish it off. This will be displayed at my LQS with the valentine stuff.Have you seen Nicole's little game of showing off your messy cutting table. I thought this would be a good time to jump right in and show what a mess I'm working with. I think to play along I'm to list 15 things on my table. Nicole will have a vote for the messiest table. Can I spy 15 things on this table? Hmmm.....not a problem.

Open tin, holds my Micron Pigma pens

mechanical pencil

2 zippers in plastic bag

pattern for sewing case I'm working on

post-it flags and post-it notes, hmmm that's 2 things or is it one???

wool needlecase, how did that get there...must have fallen from the shelf up above

cutter

rulers which I'm not using for the current project

various magazine that have nothing to do with the project I'm working on

Buggy Barn pattern, quilt is finished and quilted and ready for binding

2 piles of fabrics from older projects

metal washer peeking out from under the basket

Easier for mechanical pencil

Batting in bag

Scraps of fabrics and pieced back for sewing case I'm currently working on

Oh how embarrassing but fun at the same, I know there are more of you out there....come on show us your messy cutting table.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

This seems like it's been a long week, that could partly be because I've been suffering with migraine headaches for a few days. This usually means I haven't been drinking enough water. It's easy to forget how much water I've had or not had in a day, most of the times it's not enough. My migraine went away for my Sat stitcher's meeting...WAHOO. We had a fun time as this was the first meeting since out Christmas lunch. Our hostess (Andree) made a yummy beef vegetable soup and we had several kinds of cheese and an assortment of crackers. Gillian brought a delicious cake made with orange marmalade and whip cream. Agnes went to Korea and Japan in late Nov and brought back some wonderful books and fabrics which she showed us at the Dec meeting. We spent lots of time drooling over what she purchased. We found a really cute sewing case in one of her books and fell in love with the appliqué and of course the fabrics. Agnes generously offered to make each of us a kit and she would show us how to make the sewing case since the instructions were all written in Japanese. I'm very excited about our little project and can't wait to get started.

I've been working with the 9 patches which Darlene and I have been exchanging. Here is my progress so far. I discovered that I'm a short on the number of 9 patches and lucky me Darlene is still game for a few more exchanges....I'm so excited....I love how this quilt is coming together. I hope to have enough to make this quilt about 55"x 63" (I think). I've also finished the punchneedle "wings of love", still need to make it into something and I'm starting on my second block of Polka Dot Girls.

What a fantastic group of bloggers....thanks for stopping by to visit my little part of the world. I didn't have the energy to write everyone's name on a piece of paper for the draw, so I did it the high tech geeky thing by using a on-line random number generator. It's pretty simple and does the job quickly. Here it goes....drum roll please......#34 was selected. Pam please send me your snail mail address and I'll get your package of goodies sent off to you.

Friday, January 11, 2008

I'm very excited to tell you Christine (Auntie's Quaint Quilts) has nominated me for "Make My Day Award". It is so sweet of her to think of me. I feel very honored when someone is so thoughtful. I have to say all you bloggers make my day with sharing all your talents, ideas and projects. I can't say it enough how much inspiration I get from fellow bloggers. Consider yourself awarded "Make My Day" and play along if you choose.

Wow what a great response to my question on which came first the pattern or the fabric. It's seems the most part it works both ways. We buy fabric because we fell in love with it and often a pattern is calling out "pick me". I think for me it's the attraction of the fabrics used in the pattern. I fall in love with the combination of fabrics and want to make that same quilt. I need to work on picking fabrics from my own stash and then augment if needed. The best part is that we all enjoy our fabrics by touching, rearranging and using that special piece in a quilt.

Monday, January 7, 2008

It's about time to celebrate my 100th post, as you can see this is 105, better a little late than never.... I did have plans to make something quilty for my 100th post but I haven't done any quilting this week, I've been working on a needlepunch for the LQS sample they wanted for Valentines. I'd like to finish the Wings of Love by the end of this week. By the time I get that sample done it'll be too late to make something for my give-away. So I hope you don't mind I'll give away a couple of things all quilters love....fabric. It doesn't show well in the picture but believe me this is a really nice selection of 5 FQ's in different shades of cream to a light beige, a book with some really neat pincushions and a cute pattern. I have a question I've been thinking about this week. How do you choose a quilt pattern? Do you pick the fabric and then find a pattern or do you find a pattern first and then look for the prefect fabrics. Or maybe you prefer when the work is all done and buy a kit. I find that I'm attracted to the colours of the fabrics first then the pattern. How do you choose the right pattern for the right fabrics??? Tell me what you do when shopping for fabrics. Leave me a comment and I'll do a random draw on Sunday Jan 13th. Here is the punchneedle I'm working on "Wings of Love". It looks a bit funny right now, I'm finishing up the diamond border design around the outside edge. I haven't decided if I'm going to put this piece in a frame or make a pillow. I'm leaning towards a pillow made with wool. I'll show this again when I'm done. This is the frame I bought and has been waiting for that prefect project. Karen send me a stitchery pattern "Ring in the New" by Kathy Schmitz which will fit great in this frame, see previous post. I'm excited about getting the first block started...maybe next week I'll have some progress.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

I've been fighting a cold for the last few days, lots of napping going on for me. Hubby bought me a heated blanket for Christmas, it's been put to good use with all my naps. It's nice to get in bed with the sheets all warm and cozy. I did manage to squeeze in a few things between naps. I pieced the first block of the PDG's. I was struggling with my fabric choices, the fogging head and sniffles didn't help with deciding. Oh look....I forgot to applique the heart on the bottom block....see what happens when a cold takes over. I think using the Folklorique by Fig Tree was a good choice. I did some picking apart seams before finely deciding upon what you see in the picture. The colours seem to go better with the embroidery threads used in the pattern, sand, scarlet, terra cotta, butter scotch and indigo are part of the fabric line and seem to match the stitchiers. You'll be seeing lot of these girls this year as I have 7 more of these blocks to go. If you remember a few posts back when I showed the first stitchery done I had plans to use the Sea Side Rose fabrics, well I have a new plan for those fabrics. I won't give you any hints now, I'll wait until I'm closer to starting that project....Oh no my list for 2008 is already growing out of control. . Have you seen Linda's list? I was exhausted just reading it.

New Year's was a quite day relaxing, with a chick flick mixed in somewhere. We tried a few days ago to see the movie but the line up was so far out the door we decided to pick up a bottle of sherry and head home. So we finely got into see "PS I love You" yesterday, it's a really good chick flick, don't forget to bring lots of tissue girls.

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About Me

Welcome to my blog. This is my journal to share my quilting adventures and everything that inspires me. I work part-time at my home based business Longarm Quilting and part-time in a quilt shop called Creative Edge. Please feel free to use my tutorials and if you want to borrow a picture I only ask that you request permission first. I love to read your comments but remember I can't reply if your showing up as a "no reply". Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoy your visit.